The Storms of War (7 page)

‘You will first.’

After tea, the bigger boys took part in the tug of war, supervised by Smithson and Thompson. Michael was allowed to play too, and Celia watched him, on a different side to Tom, both boys pulling hard. Tom’s side won. Then Rudolf stood up and thanked all the children for coming and the maids gave out paper bags of cakes and biscuits for them to take home. Smithson brought out the lucky dip and Jennie supervised the children as they came, one by one. Celia watched them tearing open the parcels, flinging the paper on the floor in their excitement at finding tops, hoops, dolls, bears.

‘Goodbye!’ they cried. ‘Thank you!’ Rudolf and Verena accepted their thanks, upstanding, taller than any of the village parents. They walked inside, stately, followed by Emmeline. The last children hung around – Jessie and John, whose father beat them harder than most, said Mrs Rolls, and the little boy whose name Celia always forgot. Jennie shooed the rest of them away and then scurried inside herself, crying that she needed a cup of tea before she could do
anything at all.
Smithson and Thompson shouldered in a table, but once inside, they did not come out either, and Celia had the garden to herself.

In previous years, her mother had forced her to accompany her and Emmeline back to the drawing room, where they would ring for tea and Verena would luxuriate in a lengthy discussion about the afternoon, in which every avenue led back to the same conclusion: it had all been a splendid success. ‘You have excelled yourself, my dear,’ Rudolf would say. It had been even grander
than the party two years ago, made a coronation party to celebrate the King, when each of the children took home a present of a cake bearing three tiny silver balls – the King, the Queen and the Prince of Wales. Last year, without warning, Verena had shrugged her shoulders and said to Celia, ‘You can stay to help the maids if you like.’ Celia could have hugged herself with delight. The whole place was her playground – for as long as it took before Smithson and Thompson returned. She walked up to the tables and poked a finger into the chocolate iced cake, stuck it in her mouth, then took a strawberry biscuit, the fruit bruised and sunken. Close up, the cakes looked sunburned, touched by too many hands. The ones she had really wanted – shortbread chocolate hearts – had all been eaten. She wandered to the lucky dip and plunged her hands into the bundles of newspaper, then, after looking around, pulled the bin down to the grass and put her head inside, smelling newsprint and the paper from the presents.

That day she had been like a princess, she thought, who came down to a banquet after everybody had gone, fingered the plates, picked up the flowers. After righting the bin, she had taken another biscuit and set off towards the games, played pin the tail on the donkey. After a while, Smithson had come out and called to her to help him pull down the banners from the tables, if she wouldn’t mind, and the spell was broken because he was complaining about Thompson not helping enough and dropping a plate on his foot.

Celia wandered down to her dell and sat on her rock, trying to make up poems about the willow sweeping the pond. But she couldn’t find the right words, and her mind kept returning to Jonathan’s mouth on hers, the terrible argument with Sir Hugh.
Think of the party,
she told herself.
That will make everything happy again.

After a few hours had passed, the air cooled and it struck her that she might have missed lunch. Verena would be cross with her if she had. She ran up the garden and into the front room.
The corridor was deserted, no Smithson and Thompson, no one cleaning.

She walked further. Rudolf was coming towards her. He stopped and blinked slightly as if he did not know her. ‘Celia,’ he said, finally. ‘My dear.’

‘Hello, Papa. I didn’t hear you come back. You are early.’

He rubbed his eyes. ‘Of course. I would not miss the party.’

She tried to smile, to cover up the unease she felt nearly every time she was with him now. As a child, she had run to him whenever she saw him, always before her sisters and brothers, and she knew she was his favourite. He used to take her on long walks and point out the butterflies and the flowers. Now she could not see him without a creeping sense of embarrassment about the changes that were happening to her. It seemed impossible to her that he could love the adult as he had the child. She thought he must feel a similar sense of cringing shame.

Talking with him, just the two of them, made her nervous. ‘You had a good trip?’

‘Lord Smith’s man, Mr Gregson, did not arrive, nor my other appointment. I passed useful time in the offices, though.’ He shrugged. ‘Unaccountable, really. Mr Gregson is always so punctual. I will go back next week.’

She nodded. He fell into step with her and she listened to the touch of his heel on the hall floor. ‘A big day tomorrow.’

‘Mama’s favourite.’ She paused. ‘Do you think Sir Hugh will come?’

‘Oh, undoubtedly. The young have hot tempers. He has already forgotten, I am sure. Now, my dear, I have something to show you. Come to my study.’

She followed, waited as he opened the door and pulled something out from behind it. ‘Look! It is supposed to be drying, but I could not resist.’ He held the great piece of paper across his body. A donkey, painted brown, its eyes wide and comical, its mouth open in a sort of smile.

‘It is excellent, Papa.’

The donkey was her father’s tradition. Every year he drew it
for the pin-the-tail competition. ‘English children love this game,’ he said, as he sketched the lines of it and filled them with paint ordered from London, carefully stroking out the mane and skin.

‘I still need to do some work on the face,’ he said now. ‘Not quite perfect yet. But he will come. You could come and help me paint him later. I know how you like colouring the tail. I think him a very good donkey, do not you?’

Verena enjoyed the success of the parties, the planning, the feeling of work well done, but Rudolf loved the actual event, the children dashing around his chair, the bold ones coming up and asking silly questions or patting him on the knee. His face pinked with pleasure, his eyes followed the littlest ones as they hurtled around the garden.

‘Why didn’t you have more children?’ Celia had asked him after the party two years ago. ‘The Queen had nine.’

Rudolf patted her head. ‘You know your mother was very ill with you.’ As Celia had been told so many times, her mother had almost died, sick the whole way through the pregnancy, hardly able to drink water, and then so bad after her confinement that the doctor had called Rudolf to sit by her day and night, in case she died. ‘You were our miracle baby,’ he said. ‘Our last one.’

‘It is a very good donkey, Papa.’ She could not help it. ‘Just the one to get Emmeline married.’

He caught her hand. ‘You are young, Celia, you do not understand. The marriage is important to Emmeline, to us. In just a few years, you will be leaving school and you will be looking for a husband. Emmeline, as Lady Bradshaw, could do so much for you. She could introduce you, give you a proper debutante season. You will be the young lady of a great family, fulfil the promise of your mother.’

‘I do not wish for it.’ She had heard it from her father too many times, and from her mother.
Stand up straight! Think of your deportment. Brush your hair one hundred times every night or it will dull. You must prepare for the future.

He smiled. ‘You will change your mind. Imagine the gowns, the parties.’ He clasped her hand again, his palm dry around hers.
‘I will tell you, Celia, just between us. It is my dearest wish that you be presented to society. Who knows what a brilliant match you might make?’

‘I would like to go to Paris,’ she said.

‘Perhaps we might be able to send you for a few months or so, when the situation is calmer.’

That wasn’t what she’d meant, but it was a start.

Celia stood between her just-open curtains, wearing her nightdress. It was the day of the party, and the sun was glistening over the garden, touching the trees and flowers with gold. The maids and footmen were hurrying about, rearranging the tables, moving the chairs so they were in a better position. She dressed herself quickly and went down to breakfast. Everybody else had gone and there was no Thompson or Smithson by the tray of food. She ate her eggs and her mother came into the room.

‘We forgot everything last night,’ she said, holding her hand to her head. ‘I did not ask Miss Wilton to put your hair in curl papers.’ Celia had hugged herself with pleasure at not having to sleep in curl papers, for you could never get settled on the pillow with them on your head. ‘Well, she shall have to do it with extra strength today. I’ve sent her to your room. Run upstairs and sit for her, there’s a good girl.’

Celia made a face but obeyed, hurrying up the stairs to her room. Miss Wilton was already standing there, holding out her hands, her tight fingers outstretched. ‘I can’t wait for ever, miss,’ she said as Celia flung open the door.

Celia dipped her head. She could not arrange her own hair; she was clumsy-fingered and it slipped between her hands when she tried to plait it at school. She sat down and Miss Wilton began to brush it, pulling hard on the first tangle she found.

By two o’clock, everyone was ready. Celia walked down the stairs – carefully, because Miss Wilton was watching – feeling the house almost trembling with excitement around her. The children would already be gathering outside at the front, jostling and giggling as Jennie and Smithson kept them in line. Mr Vine stood ready to take up his position in the gardens. Downstairs, Mrs
Rolls was putting the last touches to the cakes, while the maids were patting their hair, ready to load up trays of pies, cakes and biscuits and carry them into the sun. Celia loved the house most at such moments; when it was waiting.

She pushed open the door of the parlour, the last one to arrive. Her head still aching from Miss Wilton’s nails and the hat pins digging deep into her head, she admired her handsome family: her father, his head almost touching the lights; and Michael, smart in his blue suit, his fair hair brushed over his forehead, one edge just touching his eyebrow, his hands hidden behind his back. Emmeline wore the pink scalloped gown the dressmaker had delivered last week. Despite herself, Celia admired the embroidery over the hem, the fake pearls sewn on to the bodice. Emmeline looked like the doll Belinda, great blue eyes open wide as if she was always surprised, with eyelashes that looked as if water had been dripped on them, circles of pink on her white cheeks. Celia was even slightly saddened that Arthur was not there, that he was smiling his flashy smile around Paris instead.

‘That dress is perfect for you, Emmeline.’

Her sister opened her eyes wide. ‘I’ve had a very kind letter from Sir Hugh,’ she whispered. ‘He’s been called away on business so he cannot attend, but he hopes the party proceeds well, and then we can return to the proper business of the wedding. He sent a basket of game.’

Celia squeezed her hand. ‘It is all forgotten, then.’

‘Come along, girls,’ said Verena. She was the mother Celia knew again; not lost-faced as she had been in her room the day before, but serene and upstanding, like a magazine fashion plate in her new green skirt and waistcoat, the cameo given to her on her eighteenth birthday at her throat. Miss Wilton had coiled her hair up around her head in an elaborate style, pinned it and arranged it, dressed it with oil and rose water, left it tamed and silken. Emmeline’s was bound up in what looked like a hundred little plaits.

Miss Wilton had worked hard on Celia’s thin hair, combed and puffed it until it looked halfway decent, and she had kept her blue
dress unspotted on the journey from her bedroom to the front room. It covered her knees, made them seem less gawky. ‘Hey,’ said Michael, nudging her. Verena and Emmeline were deep in a conversation about the drape of the dress’s material. Rudolf was listening to them, smiling. ‘You might be getting a pretty girl in your old age,’ Michael said under his breath. ‘Not bad at all.’

‘Why would I care about being pretty?’

‘So you can marry the Prince of Wales.’

‘He is an old man!’

‘But another German too. We’d have a lot in common.’

‘Michael!’ scolded Verena. ‘Such a way to speak about our future King.’

‘It’s true, though. No one complains at them for their accent, do they? No one says they are Kaiser-lovers.’

Rudolf turned to him. ‘This is not the place for such discussion, Michael. We are about to celebrate.’

Michael drew himself up. ‘But when will we discuss it? You always say it is not the time. But you are fine, are you not; you are a great businessman, everyone respects you. And Emmeline is beautiful and for a woman it does not matter – a husband makes her his own. But what about me? In a year, I will be finished at Magdalene. Then you all want me to go in to the law. Do you think any of those firms of solicitors would employ me?’

‘Of course they would, Michael. With your degree.’

‘But they can hear a German accent.’

‘Of course they cannot. None of us have a German accent.’

‘They can see my foreign surname. They know it.’

‘Then they’re not good people to work for,’ said Celia, more staunchly than she felt. Michael twitched slightly, did not look at her, as if she was not worth regarding.

‘We should change our name,’ he said, flatly. ‘I’ve said it before. Why do we still have this name? We could be de Wills or something and be French. Or better still, take on Mother’s name, Deerhurst.’ As Michael talked, Celia thought, Rudolf grew smaller, as if he was a plant drying up in the sun.
Answer,
she wanted to will him.
Say something!

Verena stepped forward. ‘Michael. That’s enough. I did not marry your father to stay a Deerhurst.’

Rudolf looked up from the floor. ‘Yes, my dear, quite right. We are the de Witts. Come along, let us go into the garden and greet the children.’

Verena gave a pale smile that was not really a smile at all. ‘If only Arthur were here. Then we would be a proper family.’

‘He will return soon, my dear.’ Rudolf took Verena’s arm and led them all out of the open French windows into the lower part of the garden. Michael shrugged at Celia and raked his foot on the carpet. ‘You first,’ he said, plunging his hands in his pockets, waiting by the door. She stepped out into the sun. Thompson and Smithson stood by the tables along with another footman. They bowed, pulled out chairs, and Verena, Emmeline and Celia sat down first.

‘The children will be here in a matter of minutes,’ said Rudolf, smiling around. ‘They will be playing and enjoying themselves.’ His face was red, expectant. Celia thought of a schoolboy waiting to receive his accolade at prizegiving. She sat upright and smiled, trying to imitate Emmeline’s carriage. On the table in front of her was a small vase of roses and carnations, pinks and reds. The flowers were perfect, billowing out their petals, not one of them drooping or browned. Jennie or one of the other maids must have just picked them. Celia put her finger out towards the flower nearest to her, fingered the pink frilled edge.

Even the sky was still. It too was waiting.

Fifteen minutes or so must have passed. Then footsteps were coming around the house. ‘Ah,’ said Rudolf, pulling himself up and beaming. ‘Here they are.’

Jennie appeared at the side of the house. Celia, watching her father, saw his smile drop. Jennie was alone. Her face was red, her curly hair springing from her cap. She walked towards them, not looking at anyone.
Where is Tom?
Celia cried in her head.
Where is he?

‘We’re still attending them, sir,’ Jennie said to Rudolf.

‘Well, it is still early. Why don’t you bring around the ones who are here? Let’s let the early birds catch their worm.’

‘I can’t, sir.’

‘Nonsense, of course you can, Jennie. Just bring them round. Even if it is only ten or so, we should get the games started. The rest can come on later.’

‘But sir—’

Verena broke in. ‘Now, Jennie, this is not like you. Just go back and ask Smithson to bring them, if you can’t.’

The maid stared at the ground.

‘Jennie, don’t be upset.’ Rudolf’s tone softened. ‘If only a few are here, it does not matter. How many do we have?’

Jennie said nothing.

‘Come now, my girl. Ten?’

She shook her head. Celia gazed at the petal in front of her. She was watching everything in slow time. She could see it coming. Michael was tensing next to her. The great fire was on its way.

Rudolf gave a jovial smile, but his voice was strained. ‘Eight?’

Jennie shook her head again.

‘Five?’

She stared at the floor.

‘Come on, girl, tell us. How many?’

At last she looked up. ‘None, sir.’

‘None?’ Now Rudolf shook his head. ‘That cannot be. They must be there. They must be.’

Celia sat, her smile fixed. Her shoulder was hurting. The pale icing on the cake in front of them was melting, as if it might fall down the side, on to the plate. It would spoil soon, not be nice at all. Mrs Rolls always complained that she was forced to bring the food outside too early, but Rudolf wanted it to be on display when the children arrived.

‘They must be,’ Rudolf was saying. ‘The parents surely have made a mistake. They must have thought we would collect them from the village. Yes, that’s it. Jennie, ask Smithson to go to the village and fetch them. I am certain they are waiting by the green.’

‘Father—’ Michael began.

Emmeline broke in. ‘Yes, I’m sure Papa is right,’ glaring at Celia and Michael. ‘A mistake has been made.’

The cameo was trembling at Verena’s throat. ‘Yes, Smithson could walk up to the village while Jennie waits here in case any arrive. Let us do that. Go back and tell Smithson, thank you, Jennie.’

The girl turned and began her long walk across the garden.

‘Well,’ said Rudolf. ‘What a little error. What a small mistake.’ He gave them a wide smile. ‘We shall have to put the party back by twenty minutes. If any of you would like a brief walk while we wait, please do. Perhaps we might take some of the sandwiches.’ He held out a plate to Verena. ‘My dear?’

Verena took a sandwich containing cucumber. She fingered it. ‘The bread is not light,’ she said. ‘When Mrs Rolls makes bread in summer, it is not light.’

Rudolf was looking out towards the gate. Michael put his head in his hands. ‘We are like puppets!’ he said. ‘Dressed-up puppets in finery.’

Emmeline gave him an angry stare, even though he was not looking. Celia almost wanted to pat her sister on the knee.

Rudolf smiled again. ‘These look like excellent sandwiches. But I shall not indulge just yet. I shall take a short walk to verify that everything is in order for when we must begin once more.’ He stood up and headed towards the games tables, his back bent slightly as he made his way across the grass. The bright flowers shone in Celia’s eyes.

Michael looked after him. ‘Papa fools himself,’ he said. Verena turned quickly to face him and then manoeuvred herself up, grasping the chair as she did so. She stood and followed Rudolf, her green skirt trailing in the grass.

Michael’s head was still in his hands. ‘Why do you say such things?’ spat Emmeline.

‘It’s the truth.’

‘What would you know?’

‘All you care about is what Sir Hugh might think. This whole thing is ridiculous. Everybody hates us.’

‘Stop it!’ said Celia. ‘Stop saying it.’

‘You as well.’ He stood up. ‘I’m leaving you all to it.’ He hurried off, and they heard the door slam as he entered the house.

‘Go on,’ said Emmeline. ‘Aren’t you going to run after him like you always do?’

‘I’m waiting with Papa and Mama. I hope the children will come.’

‘Of course they will.’ Emmeline reached up to adjust her hat, and gazed out, her face calm. Her eyes looked larger than ever. Celia could almost imagine that you might trust in her beauty so much that it would make everything fine and happy once more, which, she supposed, was what men thought when they picked women like Emmeline. ‘We must wait. Things come to those who wait. We’ll look back in the future and smile at the mistake we made this afternoon in sending the children to the green.’

I’m afraid,
Celia wanted to say, but you couldn’t say anything like that to Emmeline. She supposed there must be sisters who told each other such things, confided their inner secrets, were like friends. But Emmeline could not give her the answer to what she really needed to know:
Where is Tom?
He should be standing by the tables, with his sister clutching his hand, too shy to speak.
Help me!
Celia wanted to beg her sister. But she couldn’t say any of it. Instead, she stared at the cake, the icing dripping now on to the plate, leaving bare patches over the top. Emmeline continued to gaze forward, as if willing everything to turn out right. Celia was trying to think of something to say to please her, generous words about her hat, when she saw Rudolf and Verena turn and walk towards them again.

‘Now, girls, have you left the cake alone?’

‘Yes, Papa,’ said Celia.

‘Well, we shall tuck in now. The children should be on their way. Let us sit.’

‘Celia, run in and find Michael,’ said Verena. ‘Tell him we need him here.’

Celia nodded and hurried off into the house, her skirts flurrying
around her legs as they always did when she was trying to do
anything.

Michael was not in the parlour. She called his name, walking to the library, but he was not there either. She started upstairs and then on the first landing she heard the sound of thumping, something being hit over and over. It was coming from Michael’s room. She hurried up. His door was shut. She knocked and put her ear against the dark wood. The sound wasn’t stopping.

‘Michael!’

No reply came. She hardly ever went into his room. In the old days, they had the big sunny room upstairs as a playroom, with all their bears, his toy trains and their Noah’s ark. Michael had told her that Verena had talked of making it the schoolroom, but they had begged her not to, so she had changed her mind and appointed the smaller room next door that had previously been used as a place to store her gowns and Rudolf’s boxes of maps and books. Whenever she went into the playroom, Celia sat in front of the stained-glass window that coloured the light blue and green and thanked Verena for giving them this room. Even from the age of six or so, she felt certain Michael would not want to play ark with her, or bears’ hospital – their favourite – in a poky, darkened room. He was so tall and handsome, everything about him made of light. She was lucky he played with her at all.